DON JON(R)
** (out of 5)
September 27, 2013
STARRING
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as JON
Scarlett Johansson as BARBARA
Julianne Moore as ESTHER
Tony Danza as JON SR.
Glenne Headly as ANGELA
Brie Larson as MONICA
Rob Brown as BOBBY
Jeremy Luke as DANNY
Studio: Relativity Media
Directed by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
BY KEVIN CARR
Listen to Kevin’s radio review…
To me, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the acting equivalent of Joss Whedon. I don’t hate the guy’s work, but I don’t think he walks on water, either. Just as I enjoyed some of what Whedon has done (namely products like “The Avengers” and “The Cabin in the Woods”) but didn’t care for others (yeah, I’m that guy who didn’t like “Firefly”), I think Gordon-Levitt has done some great things (like “50/50” and “Looper”) but other things I didn’t like (and yeah, I’m also that guy who didn’t like “(500) Days of Summer”).
It’s because of this that I approached “Don Jon” very cautiously. The trailers alone splatter across the screen the fact that this is Gordon-Levitt’s writing and directorial debut before it even gives you a hint about the movie. It’s as if that fact was more important than the content of the movie itself.
At least in this instance, the trailer didn’t lie.
When you look past the oohs and ahhs about “Don Jon” being Gordon-Levitt’s movie cotillion, it’s a painfully superficial and paint-by-numbers story that offers very little character development. Though you wouldn’t necessarily expect this through all the flash the movie carries.
“Don Jon” is about a “Jersey Shore” type named Jon (Gordon-Levitt), who only cares about a few things: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls and his porn. However, when he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), another “Jersey Shore” type, she puts her foot down and doesn’t want him watching any more porn. This leads Jon to struggle with reconciling his near-perfect fantasies with the reality of a relationship.
Stripping away all the flash that comes with a directorial debut, the story doesn’t have much to say. Oh, it tries to say a lot, but what it does say isn’t very deep and amounts to the basic message of a standard Disney movie… without the porn.
>“Don Jon” reminds me of Kevin Smith’s “Dogma,” about which I have heard non-stop praise for its bold ideas (e.g., what if God is a woman, what if Jesus was black, etc.). However, these are ideas that are neither profound or deep. Instead, they’re the subject of many a late-night dorm-room conversation by sleep-deprived undergrads. Just because Kevin Smith thought they were genius contemplations doesn’t make them so. Similarly, Gordon-Levitt thinking his message of true intimacy is anything more than superficial in itself is foolish.
I couldn’t even swallow “Don Jon” as a comedy because there was very little likeable about anyone in the film. I know this was the point with a character like Barbara, but the revelation of her a bad person is so underhanded (and also derivative of Kevin Smith’s “Clerks.”) that it barely negates all the accolades she receives through most of the movie.
I know there are real people out there like Jon, just as there are plenty of idiots like the ones that appear on “Jersey Shore,” but that doesn’t make them good characters. There’s no depth to Jon, and he comes across even at the end as socially deficient man-child.
While it has some good moments, “Don Jon” is in love with itself as much as the title character is with himself. Fans of Joseph Gordon-Levitt should love this movie, but for me, it feels exactly like a first-time writing and directing effort by an actor who tends to be that indie darling.
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Wow, you sound like a complete tool.
Thanks for read, anyway.
Wow this critic is a dumbass! He didn’t like 500 Days of Summer??? That’s almost like the story of every average guy, unless you’re fat and ugly. I looked at some of his reviews and he should not be a critic. He liked Alien vs Predator but Brokeback Mountain.
You’re right. I’m quitting my job tomorrow. Thanks for the career advice.
Well not that I want you to quit. You’re a terrible critic yes, but I would like you to actually give independent cinema more of a chance because you think like a regular movie goer. I’ve seen some of your reviews and you’ve given a lot of crappy big budget Hollywood films a pass.
Why makes you think I don’t give independent cinema a chance?
Because I compare your reviews of Hollywood big budgets to independent film and you tend to like lots of shitty big budget crap.
completely agree with your review. i thought it had potential, but it fell flat in the end. julianne moore’s character was too contrived and also seemed to come out of nowhere.
The thing I liked most about the movie was the character development, but I understand completely why there wasn’t enough for some folks. A more mainstream or old-fashioned movie would have taken Jon completely from loser to revelation to being a different person. This movie tightly focused on the catalyst for change (Moore, the best thing in the movie, whom you didn’t mention) and the first few baby steps outside of his rigid routine. It was also fairly astute about the ways that men and women pretend to have intimate relationships and instead use each other to act out individual fantasies.
Yeah, you’re right that it would be too Hollywood if there was too much of a character change. I did like the comparison between male porn fantasies and female rom com fantasies, but I thought that particular message was lost in the overall “porn is bad” angle by the end.
Keep your job, Kevin. I think you’re onto something with this one.
This is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years. Gordon-Levitt missed the opportunity to delve deeper into the psychology of his porn addiction. What we got instead was formulaic characterization (i.e. rhythmic rotations of gym scene, church confessional scene, angry while driving scene, meticulously making bed scene, wearing wife beaters with dad while watching football and eating dinner with family scene (perhaps ripped off from “Silver Linings Playbook”), club scene, etc.) instead of a strong plot line with provocative character development.
What was clear to me from the beginning (that Jon had intimacy issues with women) did not need to be emphasized by a drawn out relationship with Barbara. While Barbara was closer to being “the one” for Jon in terms of visceral sexual attractiveness (a “dime”), she still fell short in terms of Jon’s achieving real intimacy with her, as evidenced by the tenacity of the porn addiction during their relationship. We never got a true, meaningful glimpse into why Barbara did not satisfy Jon emotionally. Their dating served nothing more than an incredibly shallow vehicle to ultimately push Jon toward Esther, which, had it happened much sooner, could’ve showed us a more intimate and complex character development in the process of Jon becoming vulnerable while learning to express intimacy with Esther.
Other notes:
The Jersey setting was terribly contrived, a bit cartoonish, and rather inconsequential to the plot line or “character development.”
The genre missed the mark. I would be hard pressed to find anything in the movie the felt genuinely romantic or comedic.
Maybe I was just really off and in a really bad mood when I watched this. Five minutes into the movie, I knew I had wasted $18 on the tickets for my wife and me. I found nothing about the movie authentic, funny, endearing, compelling, novel, or moving.
You’re absolutely right. Above all, the movie is somehow bland, which is certainly not something I was expecting. I have no particular opinion about Gordon-Levitt, but given all the great reviews of this film, I assumed I would like it.
It’s not funny, which is a problem. I don’t think I laughed even once, yet there was a couple behind me laughing throughout, even, it seemed to me, at scenes that weren’t even supposed to be funny. I mean, is it supposed to be funny when he gets into a shouting match with another driver in traffic? Is that in itself amusing? I don’t think so.
Tony Danza was annoying, which suggests to me that he’s a bad actor. He way overdid his whole obnoxious Italian dad routine: it was genuinely creepy the way he shouted at his family. Scarlett J’s character being absolutely opposed to porn? That strikes me as impossible to believe in today’s society — and Don’s friend even came close to making this point, ironically; the filmmakers must’ve known that it was simply unbelievable.
It’s just one of those movies that has nothing to say.
It seemed like Joseph Gordon-Levitt was riffing off Kevin Smith. Great actor, but cant direct for shit.